Charges and misperceptions, not ideas and ideals
by user Myclob There is a chance that Mitt Romney will not get the 2008 Republican nominee. And if he does win it, there is a chance that he will not win against the Democratic nominee. Mitt Romney lost in 1994 against Senator Ted Kennedy. When Mitt Romney lost, he felt very disappointed. Sure, he was disappointed that he lost, but he was disappointed about something else. He said that he was disappointed that he had not improved the quality of dialogue. If Mitt Romney does not win the election, lets at least improve the quality of the dialogue trying to win. In his book Turnaround, Romney said, "Ideas I brought forward were dissected and distorted to their illogical extreme." Romney had failed to "…raise new ideas for government, help rebuild a disappearing second party, and stand for something bigger than self interest… the campaign had been about charges and misperceptions, not ideas and ideals." When we debate with people lets not distort their beliefs to “their illogical extremes”. Talk to a professor that teaches a logic course, and ask them what one of the stupidest type of arguments is. I bet you they will say the slippery slope. The slippery slope argument has wasted more time than any other argument. Lets not distort what people say, and take their comments to illogical extremes. If we are going to win a debate, let’s win it logically. If we are talking about x, lets not disprove x squared. Romney wanted to also “rebuild a disappearing second party. Massachusetts is the most liberal state in our country. When we look at Mexico and Saudi-arabia we learn that one party systems are not very good. When Republicans only talk to republicans, and Democrats only talk to democrats we live in a scary world. I hate all the talk about red state and blue state. I hate all the 2nd grade oversimplification about “this person is too liberal” or “this person is to conservative.” Lets talk about issues. I have a list of hundreds of issues at this site: http://myclob.pbwiki.com/ with Mitt Romney quotes on each of them. So many people are mischaracterizing and oversimplifying his positions! There are so many people with an agenda. My agenda is clarity, and understanding. One of the problems is that some pages don’t allow feedback. Such as the Salt Lake Tribune. They like the world were they can say any stupid thing, and then outlaw people from posting corrections. Mitt Romney felt in his defeat from Ted Kennedy that the campaign had been about “charges and misperceptions, not ideas and ideals.” The same thing is going on today. People on the left are accusing Mitt Romney of hating gays because he apposes civil unions. They are taking his positions to illogical extremes. People on the right are saying that Romney has no morals, because he is nice to gay people, and says they should not be discriminated against. Both sides are stupid. Mitt Romney is Strong on the Family. He said, " America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world if we suffer the collapse of the family here at home." Mitt Romney For instance, Kate O'Beirne, from national review online said, “Should Mitt Romney join a 2008 race that included John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and George Allen, the only guy in the GOP field with only one wife would be the Mormon. “ People are trying to say that Governor Mitt Romney is to liberal towards gays, even after all of this… http://myclob.pbwiki.com/Family http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitt_Romney#Same-Sex_Marriage If Governor Mitt Romney really wants to improve the quality of diologue than he should outline all of his beliefs on a website, and let people post Reasons to agree or disagree with his beliefs. These reasons would go into one of two columns. Reasons to agree, and reasons to disagree. People could then move the best reasons to agree and disagree with each of Romney’s beliefs. We would have both sides coming together to the same page. We would have the arguments right there on the same page, with the best arguments at the top of each column, beneath each of Governor Mitt Romney’s beliefs. Mitt Romney can improve the quality of debate, by forcing those who want to post a reason to disagree, to evaluate the validity of the top reasons to agree on a scale form one to ten. This would force people to interact with their rivals. It would create dialogue. I explain better how this will work here: http://ideastockexchange.com/ but for the purposes of this blog, I just want to say there are lots of things that we can do to improve the quality of debate. That way even if we loose, our efforts won’t have been in vain. If we do not face the challenge of partisan stupidity, we could very well end up like this science fiction story: http://www.hatrack.com/osc/books/empire/empire.shtml __NOEDITSECTION__ Category: Opinions Category: Opinions by User Myclob Category: February 21, 2007 Category: Opinions From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki.